The present invention relates generally to carriers mountable to vehicles for transporting sports equipment. More particularly, it relates to carriers typically mountable to a rear end of a vehicle for transporting bicycles thereon.
Many types of sports equipment are useable only under certain conditions and/or in specific locales. Examples of such sports equipment include surfboards that are ridden at beaches and snow skis that are normally used at ski resorts. The beach and ski areas are often remotely located from the homes of those who use them, therefore the need for transporting sports equipment upon vehicles to these locations has long been recognized.
In the instance of bicycling, a rider will often desire to ride his or her bicycle in different areas without having to ride the bicycle to those areas. To facilitate the transportation of one or more bicycles, bicycle carriers mountable to passenger vehicles have been developed. The carriers are typically mountable to the rear end of a vehicle, however, the carriers may be configured to be mounted at other locations upon a vehicle as long as the location is convenient for loading the bicycles onto the carriers and neither the bicycles nor the carrier inconveniences the driver or obstructs visibility. Examples of such bicycle carriers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,323 to Chimenti et al for a BICYCLE CARRIER ADAPTED TO BE MOUNTED ON THE BACK OF A VEHICLE, U.S. Pat. No. 5,826,767 to Chimenti et al for a BICYCLE CARRIER ADAPTED TO BE MOUNTED ON THE BACK OF A VEHICLE and U.S. Pat. No. 5,363,996 to Raaber et al also entitled BICYCLE CARRIER ADAPTED TO BE MOUNTED ON THE BACK OF A VEHICLE, each of which is commonly owned together with the present invention and whose disclosures are expressly incorporated herein.
The carriers of the above referenced patents are mountable to the rear end of a carrying passenger vehicle. The carriers incorporate rigid mounting members that engage surfaces of the vehicle and clippable straps that when tightened secure the carrier to the vehicle. The carrier further includes support arms that extend away from the vehicle and upon which one or more bicycles may be secured. In several of these exemplary carriers, once the carrier is properly configured for the particular vehicle upon which it is to be installed and it is secured thereupon, the orientation of the mounting members and support arms is substantially fixed so that relative movement therebetween is prevented.
A sports equipment carrier may not always be utilized on the same carrying vehicle or even similar vehicles. In fact, body configurations vary widely among different passenger vehicles. If the mounting configuration of the carrier were fixed, each carrier would only be installable upon a select group of vehicles. This would be highly inconvenient to persons wishing to use a carrier on vehicles that are not similarly configured. Therefore, the ability to variably adjust the mounting apparatus of an equipment carrier is desirable. Furthermore, the provision of indicia of proper orientation for a particular vehicle is also beneficial to the user. In this way, the need for trial-and-error adjustment is prevented and the installation process is streamlined.
A common feature of many of these known carrier designs is the inclusion of a pair of rearwardly extending arms adapted to receive bicycles to be transported thereupon. In some of these designs, these arms are fixed with respect to the hub to which these arms and frame members are joined together. Alternatively, the hub assembly at which the mounting members and the equipment support arms are interconnected may be variably positioned from vehicle to vehicle. As such, it has also been recognized as desirable to have the ability to variably position the equipment support arm so that the arm may be appropriately oriented into a carrying configuration, regardless of the vehicle to which it is mounted. The hub assembly required to facilitate the variable positioning of the arms relative to the hub, however, is typically quite complex. To accommodate these capabilities, certain designs include mated disc-type members that must rotate relative to one another, as well as lockingly interconnect when a desired orientation is achieved. Not only are these arrangements often not user-friendly because of their complexity, but they are commensurately expensive to manufacture. As a result, more elegant solutions have been sought to simplify such hubs"" construction and operation, while at the same time lowering their cost.
Another aspect of such carriers often suffering from deficient design is the cradle upon which the bicycles rest, and by which the bicycles are secured to the carrier. Typically, these cradles provide an important buffer between the carrier and the bicycle. Different configurations for such cradles usually include a securing band or strap that wraps around the supported bicycle frame member. A problem for the user is that both hands are normally occupied lifting the bicycle up to the carrier and positioning it on the cradle(s). In traditional designs, the band or strap has often been provided as a separate element to the actual support for the bicycle. As shown in FIG. 12, a replication of FIG. 2 from U.S. Pat. No. 4,681,247 entitled LOAD SUPPORT PEDESTAL, the use of flexible belting in conjunction with a cradling base unit has been previously employed as a combination. A similar arrangement is shown in FIG. 11, a replication of FIG. 6 from U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,145 entitled MOUNTAIN BIKE RACK, in which the use of flexible elastic cord is employed in conjunction with a cradling base unit. In each of these examples of known designs, both the belting and elastic cord, however, are each so flexible that neither is capable of supporting its own weight and naturally flops across the supporting surface of the cradling base unit portion. This capability of the flexible belt and elastic cord to flop across the surface upon which the bicycle is to be placed is obviously undesirable in that the belt or cord must be moved before the bicycle can be properly installed thereupon. As pointed out above, this is often at a great disadvantage to the user since both hands are occupied with manipulating the bicycle itself. In a related aspect, if the flexible belt or cord has not flopped across the bicycle-receiving surface of the cradling base unit, it has flopped there away from, but must be fished for by the operator in order to affect properly securement across the bicycle frame member. As a result of these observations, it has been appreciated that it is desirable to have the securing strap of the cradle assembly maintained in a readied position for securement about the bicycle frame member, but out of the way until purposefully positioned across the bicycle frame member resting on the cradle base unit.
In a related aspect, it has also been found that too many component-pieces in the cradle""s design is also detrimental. Therefore, the fewer component-pieces the better, and also, the more functional features that can be incorporated into these minimized component-pieces the better.
In view of these observations, a need exists for sports equipment carriers having capabilities for variably configuring the mounting apparatus of the carrier, absorbing potentially detrimental forces communicated through the carrier, and damping rebounding forces or bouncing actions induced in the carrier""s structure. These features would prove to be beneficial if individually available, or in advantageous combinations.
In an effort to alleviate the detrimental and deficient effects described above, several invention are disclosed which incorporate a plurality of beneficial and advantageous aspects for a load carrier arrangement. One such feature is the unique design for associating a load carrying member, such as a bicycle support arm, with the hub upon which it operates. According to one aspect of the disclosed inventions, a socket is provided in the hub that is designed to insertably receive an insert portion of a load carrying member such as a bicycle support arm. The carrying member is arranged to rotate or twist within the socket. In this way a unique and elegant solution is provided for transitioning such an arm between an extended load carrying or transporting orientation and a compacted storable orientation. It also provides an simple method for making adjustments to the relative orientation of the arm with respect to the balance of the carrier. For instance, if the arm needs to be lowered slightly to be placed in a horizontal orientation when mounted upon a particular vehicle, merely performing a twist of one or both of the arms can provide a quick solution. Similarly, the arms of a pair on a carrier can be leveled; this is enabled by the fact that the arms can be independently adjusted without any changes at the hubs other than permitting rotation of the inserted portion of the arm being manipulated in its socket in the hub.
Because a simple locking arrangement is employed, namely the disclosed spring-biased pin-in-aperture configuration, both the extended and retracted configurations of the carrying members or arms are easily locked and unlocked by an operator. Still further, because of this simple arm-in-socket and biased insert pin arrangement, the carrying member or arm is easily removed from the hub simply by disengaging the locking pin by pulling it against its biasing spring from mating engagement with the receiving apertures on the arm, and then pulling the arm out of the socket. This greatly facilitates shipping where compact packing is of paramount importance.
The construction of the hub arrangement of the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 13 in which essentially two halves are simply joined together saves manufacturing costs and reduces the number of parts required to establish a working hub assembly.
In another aspect, another simple pin-in-aperture configuration is utilized for establishing proper fit of certain frame components relative to the hub of the carrier.
Still further, a scheme for providing a universal fit guide which can be utilized by a number of carriers is disclosed. By using like indicators on differently configured carrier orientation-fixing arrangements, such as the at least two different and alternative hub configurations that are described herein, a single universal fit guide can be produced which specifies one correlator or indicia for a particular fit, which will normally correspond to a particular vehicle, or group of vehicles, and which appears on the several different carriers. Arrangement of any of the properly marked carriers according to the single specified indicia for a particular fit, such as to a particular vehicle, will result. In this way, substantial economies can be realized through the uniformity fostered across different products when a single fit guide can be used for all.
In yet another aspect, several unique cradle arrangements have been disclosed. Among other features, one design is described in which the more dislocation-tending force that is exerted upon the cradle, the greater the anchoring power of the cradle to the carrier. In another aspect, the securing strap is configured with respect to the base of the cradle so that the strap extends substantially upward and away from the base, and is maintained in that orientation until purposefully bent over for securing a bicycle frame to the cradle. In this way, the strap is continuously readied for securement, but out of the way from and clear of the exposed surface of the base upon which a user must install a bicycle to be transported thereupon. To achieve this performance, the material of construction for the strap is selected so that it is sufficiently rigid to support its own weight in a substantially upright orientation when substantially unaffected by external forces, while at the same time being sufficiently flexible to be bent over the bicycle frame member that is to be secured upon the cradle after proper positioning of the bicycle thereupon.
In the several embodiments of the present invention that are disclosed herein, it is contemplated that the carrier may be associated with a transporting vehicle in a number of ways. The carrier may be directly connected to the rear of the vehicle. Alternatively, the carrier may be coupled to the vehicle with one or more components interposed therebetween. As an example, the carrier may be secured to a hitch assembly that is in turn connected to the vehicle. In any event, when the present invention is described herein as being mounted to, secured to, or otherwise associated with a vehicle, it is to be understood that the association may be direct or indirect with intermediate components therebetween.
In summary, inclusion of one or more of the above described features in a sports equipment carrier enhances the carrier""s usefulness, its compatibility with variably configured carrying vehicles, and its ease of manufacture, installation and use.